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The latest build of Mac OS X 10.6.8 has been seeded to developers. This build lists no known issues, and it has the exact same focus areas as an earlier build: AirPort, Networking, Graphics Drivers, the Mac App Store, QuickTime, and VPN.

There’s no indication of when 10.6.8 will see public release, but with OS X Lion due next month, it’s likely it will be one of the last major updates to Snow Leopard.

10.6.8 build 10K540 seeded to developers originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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According to the New York Times, Facebook is finally making an official iPad app. While Facebook’s iPhone app has been in the App Store from day one, it’s been a long, long wait for an iPad version of the popular social networking site. When asked about the possibility of an iPad app last November, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg reportedly said such an app wasn’t in the works because “The iPad isn’t mobile.”

It looks like that was an ephemeral “no” worthy of Steve Jobs. According to the Times, Facebook’s iPad app has been in testing for nearly a year, and Zuckerberg himself has been closely involved in its development. People familiar with the app’s development say its design is “slick” and well-optimized for the iPad’s screen, and it includes photo/video uploading features tied directly to the iPad 2’s built-in cameras.

Thus far, iPad users unsatisfied with the way Facebook’s site functions on a touchscreen-based device have had to make do with third-party applications. I’ve been using Friendly for iPad, but I’m still curious to see how Facebook’s official app turns out. As we heard earlier, Facebook is also planning an HTML5 application platform called “Project Spartan,” but according to the Times’ source that is intended to “supplement” the iPad app rather than compete with it.

Like the iPhone app, Facebook for iPad will be free. It is expected to debut on the App Store within the next few weeks.

Facebook is preparing an iPad app originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 16 Jun 2011 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I sat down to talk WWDC keynote reaction with the chief dude at blueHula Studios, Craig Vanderzwaag. BlueHula makes Beer Timer, an app to keep you from freezing your beer until it explodes. Pretty neat idea, and as Craig explains, they actually put research into it!

TUAW and MacTech Magazine teamed up to speak to developers at WWDC 2011 about the keynote and how Apple’s new technologies will help them and their customers. Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll bring you those videos here, MacTech.com and MacNews.com. Also, check out the free trial subscription offer for MacTech Magazine here.

WWDC Interview: blueHula Studios originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 16 Jun 2011 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I suspect we’ll see quite a few app sales pop up over this upcoming Father’s Day weekend, partly because any holiday these days tends to attract a few lowered prices in the App Store, and partly because there will likely be a few lucky dads out there picking up a new iPhone or iPad 2 for their parenting trouble. Gameloft’s the first company with a slew of sales on, including Final Fantasy ripoff Eternal Legacy, NFL 2011, Real Soccer 2011, WoW ripoff Order and Chaos Online, and Spider-man: Total Mayhem, all for the low, low price of just US 99 cents.

Gameloft also has a Twitter contest going on, but it requires a pretty gnarly retweet, so you’ll have to decide if a $10 iTunes card is worth spamming all of your followers. Or do what I do, and keep a separate Twitter account just for silly RT contests like this one.

So congrats to all those dads out there — just think, all of the diapers and whining and crying were completely worth it, because this weekend you get to pick up Eternal Legacy for just a buck. And stay tuned, we’ll probably see a few more sales heading on into this weekend.

Gameloft starts the Father’s Day app sales originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 16 Jun 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Twitter and Facebook might be looked upon as “simple” forms of social networking if technology from an Apple patent ever sees the light of day. MacRumors has discovered an Apple patent called “Ad hoc Networking Based on Content and Location” which describes a way iPhone users can meet people with similar interests that are in their immediate vicinity. In the patent Apple states that currently growing a social network on sites like Facebook and Twitter first require that you know the people you are adding and getting to know people based on similar interests can be a pain that “often requires a substantial amount of and time and effort because identifying new persons with common interests for friendships is difficult. For example, when two strangers meet, it may take a long and awkward conversation to discover their common interests or experiences.”

Apple hopes to remedy that by allowing iPhone users to opt-in to automatically sharing their interests with other iPhone users in their area. If there’s a connection, the two people can agree to meet in person. Information shared would be based on questionnaires people filled out, such as favorite books, activities and movies as well as from “automatically created usage data of the mobile devices. Usage data of a mobile device can be created based on activities performed on the mobile device (e.g., songs downloaded), a trajectory of the mobile device (e.g., places traveled), or other public data available from the mobile device (e.g., pictures shared),” according to the patent.

This isn’t Apple’s first patent in iPhone-based social networking services. In February 2010 a patent emerged that detailed how iPhone users could share their location information with each other so they could find one another in the same city, for example. However, the services in that patent required users to already know each other and be in the Address Book on the iPhone. The new patent revealed today allows iPhone users to meet people without previously knowing them.

Apple patent wants to take the “long and awkward” steps out of making new friends originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 16 Jun 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There’s a whole trail of rumors hinting at an upcoming deal between speech recognition company Nuance and Apple. For quite a while now (ever since Apple picked up personal assistant software maker Siri), the scuttlebuzz has claimed that the folks in Cupertino would make a deal with Nuance for some kind of speech recognition, most likely an iOS-level integration that would allow you to ask your iOS device for whatever you want, and get it quickly and easily.

But even if that deal is on, that hasn’t stopped Nuance from slowing down. The company has acquired another speech recognition firm, SVOX, the creators of high-end speech recognition and text-to-speech services. That’s a natural fit for Nuance, of course, and the release says that the new deal “will advance the proliferation of voice in the automotive market, and accelerate the development of new voice capabilities that enable natural, conversational interactions between consumers and their connected cars, mobile phones, and other consumer devices.”

Sounds exciting to us. We didn’t actually get to see either Siri or an updated voice control service show up during the iOS 5 announcement at WWDC, but that doesn’t mean it’s completely out of the cards yet. Maybe a deal like this is just what Nuance needs to set up the partnership that Apple’s reportedly been seeking for a while.

Nuance buys SVOX ahead of iOS 5 release originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 16 Jun 2011 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve covered AssistiveWare before on TUAW, but this time Neil with MacTech sat down with David Niemeijer of AssistiveWare to talk about Lion, iOS 5 and keynote revelations at WWDC 2011. Tune in to the video below to find out what’s new in assistive software for those who use it.

TUAW and MacTech Magazine teamed up to speak to developers at WWDC 2011 about the keynote and how Apple’s new technologies will help them and their customers. Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll bring you those videos here, MacTech.com and MacNews.com. Also, check out the free trial subscription offer for MacTech Magazine here.

WWDC Interview: AssistiveWare originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 16 Jun 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Chicago-based music label Numero Group is the first record label to publicly opt out of Apple’s iTunes Match service, which lets users redownload any songs they have in their iTunes library to any device they own. In a short blog posting, Numero Group said that “we feel that a great risk is being taken by Apple and the major labels that have accepted the terms of this new product wholesale with not a thought beyond the 150M those so-called ‘big four’ will probably divide and pay to their top executives. By that, we mean that laws that protect compositions and copyrights for songs are, more or less, being trampled under these agreements.”

In an interview with Ars Technica, Numero Group co-owner Rob Sevier explained that for small record labels like his there’s not much benefit to allowing Numero tracks on iTunes match. Sevier told Ars that iTunes Match effectively “legitimizes” piracy and easily turns people into “pirates” for a one-time fee of $25. For a small record label like his, which may only sell 10,000 copies of a song, the potential for people to download pirated copies and then turn them into “legitimate” copies via iTunes Match isn’t worth the risk. “We are primarily a physical goods company,” Sevier said. “Because of that, we don’t get too bogged down in bootlegging; we just can’t stay up all night and worry about it. But for Apple to say that all your bootlegs are welcome, it just bothers us.”

Sevier also discounts the notion that iTunes Match is a way for smaller labels to take part in revenue sharing, which would potentially make up for any illegal music matched on iTunes. He says that the potential revenue from iTunes Match won’t make up for the increased rate of piracy, which could be as high as 1000% in his estimates. “It’s not going to be enough to matter. I don’t think that any of this will even filter down to artists. It doesn’t matter what kind of label it is, it’s just going to be an administrative mess dealing with all these micropayments. There’s no way it’s going to cover the hourly wage of someone working in the accounting department to even deal with.”

Servier expects some of his customers to be unhappy about not being able to have their songs matched on iTunes, but he feels that someone needs to protect the smaller artists, songwriters, and producers. He also states that he could have quietly opted out of iTunes Match, but decided to blog about his decision in hopes that his decision will spur other labels in the industry to fully think out what joining iTunes Match may mean for the artists they represent.

Music label Numero Group opts out of iTunes Match originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 16 Jun 2011 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple is rumored to be halting any new Mac releases until Lion ships in July, according to a report heard by AppleInsider. Sources for that site say that Apple management is so excited about the improvements and user experience Lion offers, they don’t want to ship any new Macs until Lion is finalized, so that “buyers are afforded the latest and greatest Apple experience.”

Apple apparently has new MacBook Airs ready to ship, but is waiting until it can load a gold-master version of Lion on them to do so. Also, while there are no hard rumors surrounding the next Mac Mini and LED Cinema Display, apparently those rollouts too are waiting for the final release of Lion, which is supposed to come out sometime next month.

And the Mac isn’t the only platform waiting for new software — apparently new iOS devices are also waiting to ship until iOS 5 is finalized. Apple wants to make sure all iCloud services are up and running so that new iPhone owners can take advantage of the full services iOS 5 and iCloud will offer.

Apple may freeze new Mac releases until Lion ships originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 16 Jun 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Next time you visit your doctor and poke around his or her office, chances are you’ll see an iPhone or an iPad lying around. A survey of 3,700 physicians by QuantiaMD reveals the iPad and the iPhone are the preferred mobile devices among those in the medical profession.

According to the survey results, 83% of physicians own a smartphone. Of those with a smartphone, 59% have an iPhone and 29% have an iPad. About 44% of those physicians without a smartphone expect to buy one in 2011. What will they choose? 39% said they plan to buy an iPhone and 27% plan to buy an iPad. How does Android compare? Only 20% see an Android handset in their future, while a lowly 7% want an Android tablet.

This dominance holds true whether the physician buys the device out-of-pocket or his practice funds the purchase. These iOS devices are certainly being put to good use. Doctors use them to look up drug information, choose a treatment path, learn about new treatments, help make a diagnosis and more.

(Ed: Plus, come on — would you really want someone who buys a Windows phone to be in charge of your health?)

iPhone and iPad are preferred by physicians says survey originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 16 Jun 2011 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s close to Father’s Day here in the US. Hopefully you’ve got the perfect gift planned. Perhaps you splurged on the ideal man cave, or you went less extreme and bought an iPhone, iPad or new Mac for the awesome father in your life. If, however, you’re still scrambling for gift ideas, here are a few of our suggestions.

iPhone

There are several apps and accessories geared toward outdoor sports. The GPS Kit iPhone App (US$19.99) was just featured in Time Magazine and has a number of excellent outdoor uses, especially if dad’s into hiking, biking or geocaching. Bikers can pair it with an iPhone bike mount such as this one from Bracketron ($39.95).

For the golfer, pair a golf bag mount with Golfscape GPS Rangefinder (currently on sale for $9.99). Golfscape just won an Apple Design Award and allows you to view distances on more than 37,000 golf courses around the world. You can see the distance to the front, center and back of the green and up to 40 mapped targets per hole. The golf bag mount ($29.95) is coming soon, so you’ll have to give dad an I.O.U. for that part of the gift.

If you’re got a new father on your list (or know a busy parent), pzizz sleep is now a very affordable $5.99. Our own Dave Caolo swears by it. “Software like pzizz can let you take a restful nap that you know you’ll wake from in a timely manner,” he said. “That’s important (re: bus pickups). Short naps can be effective stress relievers and re-energizers. pzizz is a tool that helps you achieve that.” There is also pzizz energizer to provide said energy boost.

iPad

My father-in-law, like my husband, prefers to stay at home as much as he can. And while the women in their lives can coax them out shopping, both would probably prefer one of the many catalog apps that have sprung up for the iPad. We reviewed Catalog Spree and Catalogue for iPad recently, and both are worth adding to see which one your father prefers.

For car lovers, Ferrari has released several official cases for iOS devices. Only one is in the Ferrari store at the moment, costing a little more than $93.

In the retro gaming world, ThinkGeek has both the $99.99 iCade arcade cabinet or the just-released iPad Arcade Stick ($24.99 for one, $39.99 for two.)

Mac and others

You can’t go wrong with a good digital photo frame, and we like The Kodak Pulse frame, which allows you to add photos to the frame wirelessly. The 7-inch model is currently going for under $100 on Amazon.

To spruce up a suit or tux, try a pair of these open-source electronic cufflinks. iCufflinks from Adafruit ($128.99) look like a Mac’s startup button and pulsate with a soft light for up to 24 hours.

Meanwhile, Feral Interactive Ltd. just brought Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga to the Mac App Store for $29.99, for dads who are gamers. Civilization V: Campaign Edition from Aspyr Media is also available for $49.99.

If you’re still stumped for ideas, check out our past recommendations for that extra spark! Of course, you can never go wrong with an iTunes gift card, which are sold pretty much everywhere.

Apps, accessories and more for Father’s Day originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 16 Jun 2011 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Have you ever wished QuickTime would just play all those random formats you’ve got? That you didn’t have to resort to other programs, or worse converting everything, just to get them to play? You need Perian.

We’ve covered Perian a lot in the past, and for good reason — it’s a one stop-shop media plug-in that just works. Installed as a Preference Pane, it essentially gives QuickTime support for a myriad of file formats, video and audio codecs, and subtitles. Included in the mix is playback of MKV files with H.264, DivX and VP6 video, which combined with AVI support, should mean that almost any file you find strewn across the internet can be played. If that wasn’t enough, you’ve also got FLV support, so you can play back all those videos you downloaded from YouTube.

With Perian installed you can turn QuickTime X into a proper video player, while still being able to revel in the sleek, minimalist Apple user experience with tight integration into your Mac.

Perian is available for free, supports OS X 10.4.7 and higher and, if you don’t want to resort to programs like VLC, could be the solution to your file playback problems.

TUAW’s Daily Mac App: Perian originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 16 Jun 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Facebook was apparently spurned by Apple in favor of Twitter for close integration in iOS 5, but the social networking giant is now moving ahead with plans to bypass the App Store with an upcoming HTML5 web app aimed at Mobile Safari — Project Spartan.

This not-so-secret project has been making the rounds on Twitter, and is apparently aimed at breaking Apple’s lock on app distribution through the App Store. Apple can’t control what sites are visited by iOS users, so Facebook is looking at Project Spartan as a way to grab a piece of the app pie from Cupertino. Facebook is reportedly working with 80 outside developers including Zynga (Farmville, Hanging With Friends) and the Huffington Post (owned by our parent company, AOL) on a variety of apps.

TechCrunch (also an AOL property) blogger MG Siegler had a hands-on look at Project Spartan, and described how app purchasing would work: “Imagine loading up the mobile web version of Facebook and finding a drop-down for a new type of app. Clicking on one of the apps loads it (from whatever server it’s on depending on the app-maker), and immediately a Facebook wrapper is brought in to surround the app. This wrapper will give the app some basic Facebook functionality, as well as the ability to use key Facebook elements – like Credits.”

Credits is Facebook’s in-house payment system, akin to the payment system Apple uses for app, music, and ebook purchases. By making the purchase of HTML5 games, news readers, and other apps available through a separate purchasing mechanism, Facebook hopes to profit from the almost 100 million mobile users who are part of the Facebook family.

Siegler notes that while Project Spartan is meant to attack Apple on one front, it also has the opportunity to help Apple in another way. By demonstrating the ability of developers to create compelling content in HTML5, Facebook hopes to pry those devs from Adobe’s Flash technology, which is something that Apple would dearly love to see.

Project Spartan is expected to roll out for Mobile Safari users in the next few weeks, and it should be an interesting to see how Apple responds to this infringement on its turf.

Is Facebook’s Project Spartan going after Apple’s app lock? originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 16 Jun 2011 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dear Aunt TUAW,

I renewed MobileMe in April for $99. It appears there will be no refund. Where’s the loud and insistent outcry?

Your rather ticked-off nephew,

Z

Dear Z,

Auntie totally gets where you are coming from (although as far as she’s concerned, MobileMe is something that always happened to other people). Apple has renewed all MobileMe customers until the middle of 2012 but, honestly, what’s the point?

Anyway, Apple has clarified its MobileMe refund policy on this Knowledge Base page. Unused activation codes and codes used for 45 days or less will be fully refunded. Codes used for 46 days or more will receive pro-rated refunds. Shipping costs and rebates will be deducted from any refunds. You’ll need to provide proof-of-purchase documentation before submitting any claims.

You can contact Apple directly and request a refund by phone. This worldwide list of numbers provides contact information on a country-by-country basis. That’s what Uncle Steve did.

He renewed at the start of the year, getting a few months of service but paying for the entire year. He might have gotten a couple of months more value than you but he’s totally in the same boat. So Auntie made him call up Apple and demand, I tell you, demand that refund.

Here’s what happened. He was quickly transferred to the MobileMe department, and the phone rep there recommended that he wait on canceling. “You can cancel your MobileMe subscription at any time for a pro-rated refund,” they told him. “However, if you use MobileMe for email, contacts, calendar, iDisk files, and MobileMe Gallery, that information is going to be deleted and you won’t be able to sync devices.”

The Apple support rep recommended waiting until iCloud becomes available. “[If you wait until] those services are available to you, you can cancel the MobileMe subscription and receive a refund for the remainder of the year. You cannot reactivate your MobileMe subscription after you cancel it, so be sure that if you are going to cancel that you have alternative sources for email, and for syncing. “

Uncle Steve chose to wait. He’s going to cancel after iOS 5 and iCloud are firmly chugging along this Fall and request his pro-rated refund at that point. You might want to wait and do the same. That’s because Uncle Steve is very sensitive about his “mac.com” email address. He wants to keep it forever and ever, and hug it and love it and call it “George.” It appears that he’ll be able to do so. Yay!

He’s more than a little concerned about the 5 GB free storage limit on iCloud, though. His email will chew that up in no time — much like how Auntie’s little Pekingese puppy Spunky Sue (AKC registered name “Spunky Sue Your Pants Off Champion Johnnie Cochran”) chewed up Auntie’s favorite slippers last week.

You’ll discover a wealth of information about iCloud both in the press release announcing the service and in the web pages that describe it, so be sure to do a little reading for your homework.

Do you have any other concerns about MobileMe and the transition to iCloud? Let Auntie know in the comments.

Hugs,

Auntie T.

Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me get a MobileMe refund originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 16 Jun 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Retired professional athletes often reflect on the glory days and those moments when they were at the top of their game. For ousted corporate CEOs, apparently your time in the past with a company that is now flying high is cause for reflection. At least that’s the case with former Apple CEO John Sculley (at right in the photo above), who waxed nostalgic for the good old days at Apple as part of an executive speaker series at the Hult International Business School in London last night.

Sculley is best known as being hand-picked by Steve Jobs to be the CEO of Apple during the critical years when the Mac was developed and introduced. Formerly the president of PepsiCo, Sculley ran Apple between 1983 and 1993. Although the company’s revenues increased from $800 million to $8 billion in those ten years, Sculley was eventually replaced by the Apple board of directors as margins and stock price declined. Thanks to his awesome leadership at Apple, both Business Insider and Portfolio Magazine would add Sculley to their “Worst American CEO” lists.

But that hasn’t tarnished Sculley’s fond memories of Apple. At last night’s talk, he discussed the differences between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates (mainly the fact that Steve is all about the design excellence while Bill was “all about landgrab” and “built this entire company Microsoft around shrink wrapped software.”), why Jobs hired him in the first place (Sculley wanted to “sell the experience of a lifestyle” as he did at Pepsi), and lauds Steve Jobs as being the “one person” who launched the mobile era.

The last statement is fine praise indeed from Sculley, who was known for spearheading the ill-fated — but groundbreaking — Apple Newton MessagePad during his reign. Electricpig UK was in attendance at the talk and has more details of last night’s event here.

John Sculley discusses time at Apple, Steve Jobs originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 16 Jun 2011 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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